Learning for employability in contexts of economic despair: Empirical insight from the Gaza Strip

Literature on education for employment (EfE) predominantly focuses on the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in preparing students for the workforce. This focus covers links between employability, on one hand, and teaching, curriculum, assessment, and extracurricular activities, on the other. The role of independent learning, broadly understood as students’ individual effort to enhance their employability, remains masked and is assigned secondary importance in the relevant literature. This scholarship deficit is arguably more pronounced in contexts of economic despair. In such contexts, an EfE logic still supersedes any logic of learning for employability (LfE) in efforts to train a high-calibre workforce for economic recovery and development. Yet, this logic is often accompanied by decontextualized views of HEIs, which often lead to suboptimal problem formulations and unfeasible solution proposals. The study is an attempt at addressing this deficit. It proposes a parallel, not alternative, logic of LfE, which centralizes students’ independent learning engagements to examine and develop support for their own pursuits of employability development. The study draws on original empirical data collected, through a questionnaire and in-depth interviews, from new graduates in the Gaza Strip. Through interpretive phenomenological analysis, the study findings suggest that the participants exerted significant, independent, and strategic effort in seizing employability development opportunities. Based on the findings, I contend that a learner-centred logic of linking education and employability is of compelling significance to various stakeholders in the education and market spheres, especially in contexts of protracted hardship

Rethinking International Scholarships as Peace Interventions in the Palestinian Context of Conflict

International education scholarships can be significant interventions at times of conflict and peace. Extant research in International Relations and in International Education begins to demonstrate this significance but predominantly in neo-liberal terms of human capital import, North-facing cosmopolitanism, and Western-style democratization and global (economic) integration. This is valuable framing, but it misses more complex political effects of scholarships as conflict and peace interventions. This paper presents empirical evidence illuminating the need for a broader ontology in researching the potential contribution of scholarships to peace. The paper draws on qualitative data collected from 32 Palestinian scholarship alumni and alumnae, sampling a national group nowhere to be found in scholarly or policy works dealing with international education and conflict/peace. Developed through a critical realist thematic analysis of the collected data, the experiential findings reported here show strong perceived gains in the research participants’ critical reflexivization and domestic and global (re)socialization of their sense of national identity and awareness. An interdisciplinary discussion of these gains demonstrates that scholarships may represent deep and significant advocacy and capacity-building interventions in the contexts of conflict, with these interventions spanning the humanitarian, development, and, to a lesser extent, political spheres. The discussion is concluded with a reflection on the methodological-conceptual challenge these findings outline to framing international education impacts in only neo-liberal terms. Overall, this paper contributes a timely Global South perspective to inform critical thought and practice of international scholarships for Palestinians and other conflict-affected groups/nations

Critical Realist Autoethnography in International Scholarships Impact Research: An Illustrative Proposal

International higher education scholarships can be an impactful tool of development. They have demonstrable potential to advance the knowledge, skills, and networks of individuals, who may then be able to use these outcomes in making significant contributions in their workplaces and societies. This evolving theory of change has rightly guided the growing body of academic research and professional evaluations in this area. However, this academic and grey literature tends to limit investigations to the post-completion stage, often focusing on exploring impact through such neoliberal indicators such as economic return, career progress, and links to the foreign country of study. This exploratory scope and methodological-theoretical design demonstrably limit the extent to which scholarships impact may be understood in terms of its emergence or appreciated in terms of its manifestation. I try to respond to this limitation in this paper; I pilot a critical realist autoethnography methodology in explaining how two recent graduate scholarships have impacted me. The study makes three contributions to this area of research and practice. Empirically, it extends support for current research findings in the area by offering the first scholarly account of a Palestinian's scholarship experiences and impact. Drawing on empirical findings, it demonstrates that scholarships impact is a dynamic, contingent, and co-constitutive process. Methodologically, it illuminates the practice of critical realist autoethnography in both exploring and explaining this process of scholarship impact. Practically, it proposes this alternative conceptual-methodological approach may be a powerful tool of evaluating—and simultaneously optimizing—scholarships impact

Integrating Study Abroad Research and Practice: African American and Black Students in Focus

This brief integrates insights from research and practice to shine light on these questions, which are on the forefront of the minds of many study abroad practitioners across the country. Our point of departure is that although Black student participation in study abroad is increasingly less than that of their peers (Lu et al., 2015), their study abroad experiences and learning outcomes are receiving increased research attention. In the case of this brief, the reviewed research shows that Black students’ study abroad experiences and learning outcomes seem to be largely positive. Broadly, the Black students whose experiences are documented in reviewed studies made gains in their academic achievement, language learning, intercultural competence, identity development, wellbeing, and career outcomes (Bell et al., 2021; Blake et al., 2020; Bush et al., 2022; Byker & Xu, 2019; Dietz et al., 2011; Edwards, 2020; Lu et al., 2015; Quan, 2018; Smith-Augustine, 2014; White et al., 2011; Willis, 2015)

Integrating Research and Practice to Enhance Experiences and Outcomes of Study Abroad of Underrepresented Students: An Introduction

A team of practitioners, researchers, and scholar-practitioners collaborated to spotlight successes and to enhance areas for improvement in study abroad practices through interaction with research. The joint effort focused on study abroad students from five identity groups for which the research base was large enough to permit generation of research-to-practice briefs. Researchers first reviewed studies from the Academic Research on Education Abroad (AREA) Database and summarized research on these students’ study abroad experiences and outcomes. Practitioners—most of them with lived experience as a member of the identity group—drew on their expertise in interpreting the relevance to practice of summarized research findings and in recommending better study abroad practices. The resulting five research-to-practice briefs focus on the experiences and outcomes of five student identity groups: African American and Black students, Asian and Asian American students, first-generation students, Hispanic and Latinx students, and LGBTQ+ students. Altogether, these briefs signify working in teams of both researchers and practitioners, and they highlight some of the outstanding gaps in study abroad research and practice concerning the student groups in focus